1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to the field of social alarm systems and to a device for detecting a fall by a person.
2. Description of Related Art
Typically, a social alarm system monitors the safety and wellbeing of a client in their dwelling. A social alarm client unit is installed in the dwelling and is arranged to initiate an alarm call to a remote monitoring centre apparatus when an alarm event is detected. As particular examples, the alarm may be triggered by the client pressing an alarm button on the social alarm client unit itself or on a personal radio trigger unit such as pendant.
The client unit may use data signalling to inform the server apparatus of the alarm event. The remote monitoring centre apparatus may allow an operator using a terminal to open a voice communication path and talk with the client via the client unit. The voice communication path is helpful in order to immediately reassure the client and assess their need for further care.
The system may include a fall detector unit which is arranged to detect that the client has fallen and trigger a corresponding fall alarm event via the social alarm client unit. The fall detector may be carried or worn by the client, and may be provided in various configurations, such as a belt, a wrist strap, or a pendant, among others. As will be familiar to those skilled in the art, each of these wearing configurations brings forward technical challenges in order to correctly distinguishing a fall from other physical activities of the client (e.g. bending, sitting).
Thus, a difficulty arises in correctly and reliably detecting actual fall events. Also, it is desired to minimise false positives. Therefore, it is desired to provide an effective and cost-effective mechanism for detecting a fall by a fall detector unit in a social alarm system. In at least some situations, it is desired to provide a fall detector unit which is relatively small and lightweight, has good battery life (low power consumption), and yet which is robust and reliable.
Generally, it is desired to address one or more of the disadvantages associated with the related art, whether those disadvantages are specifically discussed herein or will be otherwise appreciated by the skilled person from reading the following description.